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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28358841">in bad lands, i’m a good man for you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed'>prettydizzeed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>safe &amp; holy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crisis of Faith, Developing Relationship, Explicit Consent, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Post-Season/Series 02, Tenderness, Trans Cobb Vanth, Trans Din Djarin, Trans Male Character, religious trauma, t4t</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:55:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,790</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28358841</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Din was raised to regard change as the highest form of holiness, or the closest concept his culture had to it; life requires growth, therefore stagnation is antithetical to life. The man beside him, Din can’t help but think in the middle of the night, with sand so thick outside the windows that he can’t see the moons, has done more than just respond in sync when Din altered plans in the middle of a battle, when Din showed up at his door after months of radio silence and memories. He’s met Din’s dearest value without even knowing what it is.</p>
<p>(Can be read as a stand-alone.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin &amp; Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>safe &amp; holy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>150</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in bad lands, i’m a good man for you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>warnings for canon-typical discussions of religious fundamentalism, slavery, and genocide</p>
<p>title from “good man” by josh ritter, which is on my dincobb playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1xPsPwmXcQmbhjWgLt9ky6?si=LgHcw7r6QBKZtEjABs-rUQ</p>
<p>shoutout to the folks who help create Wookieepedia content, which i spent way too many hours reading while working on this</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After Moff Gideon—after Bo-Katan, after staring his own doubts in the face, after fighting hard enough and long enough to not damage her pride and then yielding like he’d always wanted to—Din returns to Mos Pelgo. Just for a few days, he tells himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just for a few days,” he tells Cobb, and the Marshal laughs in his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like Malachor you are,” he says. “C’mon, a week at least.” He’s grinning, squinting at where Din stands in front of the twin suns.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb can’t see him roll his eyes behind the helmet, but Din does it anyway. “Yeah, we’ll see.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He follows Cobb into the small house, a mix of traditional and technological with all the seams showing where the two meet. The walls are pale mud brick; there are solar panels on the low roof. The space is really just one long, narrow room and the ‘fresher, and it looks the same as when Din left it, down to the placement of the worn quilt draped haphazardly over the arm of the couch. Cobb wanders to the section of the room that serves as the kitchen and grabs a bowl from the cabinet. All the dishes are stored upside down, with rags over the stacks for good measure, to keep the dust out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re lucky,” Cobb says, ladling stew into the bowl, “I made extra.” He pauses, the bowl half-full. “There any dietary restrictions in that creed?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Din says, unexpectedly touched. No one has asked that before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Perfect,” Cobb says. He fills a glass and sets it and the bowl on the table. “I’m gonna go check on the moisture farm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He makes his unsubtle but appreciated exit, and Din removes his helmet to eat. The stew is flavorful, the meat tough but abundant, and the significance of a glass of water in the Tatooinean desert is not lost on him. He drinks slowly and gratefully, not breaking eye contact with the visor of his helmet where it rests on the table. His reflection, twisted by the angle and interrupted by grit, looks heartbroken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb knocks on the doorframe when he returns, and Din hesitates before putting his helmet back on, but he does it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you for your hospitality,” he says. “I appreciate it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb smiles slightly and looks down, scuffing a shoe against the baked mud floor. “Well, I may have given you a bit of an unorthodox welcome last time, so. Gotta prove I’m not completely uncivilized.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you talking about the sex or the attempted bar fight?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb flushes red down to where his scarf hides the rest of his neck, which is as endearing as it is unexpected. Din wants, suddenly and intensely, to untuck the fabric from his collar, unwind it from his neck, and kiss along the revealed tendons. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What have you been up to, anyway?” Cobb asks, and Din mentally shakes himself and thinks better of calling him out on the change of subject.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How much time do you have?” he asks instead, and Cobb motions him to the door and then out onto the porch, bathed in the orange light of the setting second sun. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“As much as you want,” Cobb says. He crosses his ankles when he sits, tips his head back. He listens intently as Din, perched on the edge of the other chair, tells him about the past few months: Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians, intent on a revolution for a planet he has no connection to; Fennec Shand, back from the dead, and Boba Fett who wired a resurrection into her stomach; Ahsoka Tano and her twin blades that took down the Magistrate; Grogu, with a name and a past that now has one more trauma in it; the young man with the fierce movements and earnest, tired eyes who he asked Din’s permission to leave with. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kriff,” Cobb says when he’s finished. He takes a long swig of the spotchka he stopped to fetch around halfway through Din’s telling. “I’m so sorry…” His voice is soft, and he pauses where Din’s name would’ve been spoken under different circumstances, if he was someone who had a name and a face known to others of his own regular, easy volition.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Din.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Din,” Cobb says, holding the syllable in his mouth like fine Correllian whiskey, like he wants to make it last. “I’m so sorry, Din.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you.” He bites down lightly on his tongue. “Can we talk about something else, please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Boba fuckin’ Fett, huh,” Cobb says seamlessly, shaking his head. “I’ll be damned.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Probably a good thing I caught up with you before he did,” Din says. He doesn’t know the whole of that story, still, but he’s pieced enough together from the armor’s chain code and Bo-Katan’s snide comments. Cobb tilts his head in agreement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sit together more or less in silence until the second sun sets and a chill begins to creep in over the darkened desert. Far off, some hardy insect is singing, despite everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Suppose we should get to bed,” Cobb says finally, and then looks at Din out the corner of his eye. “That wasn’t a double entendre.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know,” Din says, and then, too weary and wrung out and heart-bruised to stop himself, “Can I share yours? Not like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure.” Cobb’s face doesn’t reveal any particular emotion, shadowed as it is by the moons on the rise. He stands, stretching, and Din follows suit. “Bed oughta be able to bear the weight.” He gestures to encompass Din’s armor, and Din moves a hand to the straps of his vambrace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I can—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Cobb stops him with a hand on his shoulder, not holding him at bay but rather bracing him, keeping him upright. “Wait to make that call when you aren’t drunk on grief, Din.” He just breathes like that for a minute, flexing his fingers against Din’s shoulder pauldron. “Doesn’t mean I can’t hold you, though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. What does his clarity in making the call matter, he wonders, if he’s already one of the pitiable, the damned—but then again, what’s one more day between acts he was once so certain he’d never commit. “Alright,” Din says, unable to muster the energy to argue and not wanting to infringe on Cobb’s boundaries when the man took him into his home unannounced. Cobb nods and motions Din in through the door, shoves a rag into the jagged gap between it and the floor when he shuts it behind them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Got a preference for which side?” he asks when they reach the bed, and Din motions him in first. Cobb nods, unsurprised, and throws back the pile of mismatched blankets to climb in. Din, for the second or maybe third time this evening, follows him. He feels unmoored, drifting in the open space of his own shock and mourning, a satellite tugged in by Cobb’s easy gravity. It’d be terrifying if it wasn’t such a relief, which in and of itself will probably worry him in the morning. For now, though, he stretches out along the mattress, lumpy but softer than his own utilitarian bunk—ash, now—and lets Cobb curve into his side, drape an arm across his belly where his chestplate ends. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shh,” Cobb murmurs, although Din hadn’t said anything. So Din listens to his breathing and sinks into sleep wishing he could feel the rise and fall of Cobb’s chest against his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb is already up when Din awakens, which is kind of concerning. Din, long a light sleeper and even moreso since caring for a baby, has no idea how the man climbed over him without waking him. He files this weakness, too, away to deal with later.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb looks up from the table and nudges a mug of caf towards Din before heading to the ‘fresher. On top of all the other reasons it would be a bad idea, Din knows it isn’t big enough for two bodies, and sharing a sonic is surely much less pleasant than a shower, anyway. Still, he has to swallow back the urge to follow him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The caf is lukewarm by now but strong. Din sets the chipped mug in the side of the autoclave sterilizer labeled Dirty when he’s done, then stands awkwardly near the wall, unsure what to do with himself. He studies Cobb’s shelves; there’s a catalog of holodiscs on one, equally populated by abolitionist writings and action holodramas. Din smiles to himself before he can think better of it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you want to borrow any, feel free,” Cobb says as he exits the ‘fresher. “I’m working my way through a copy of the holojournal of this Balinak who escaped Karfeddion. Xe talks a lot about movement-building in places with strong anti-abolitionist policies, it’s riveting stuff.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Din says, glancing at the titles again. “I might take you up on that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘Course, there aren’t many you can get through in a day, unless you’re a much faster reader than me,” Cobb adds, and he’s smiling when Din looks over at him, lines emerging at the corners of his eyes. “Stay awhile,” he adds, softer. “I can pull a couple favors and get you off this rock, if that’s what you want, but. Can’t hurt to wait a bit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was thinking about trying to find where the covert relocated,” Din says, which both is and isn’t an answer. “But—I don’t know. I wouldn’t be welcome, if they knew about—about the Imperial base, and when I said goodbye to the child. And even though they wouldn’t have any way of knowing, I’d know, and I’d feel like a fraud. More than I already do now.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb nods slowly. “I’ve got a brand on my back,” he says, and Din tries to keep his body language as neutral as possible, not too stiff but not suddenly turning. “I’m sure you know what that means. Hell of a scar on my ankle, too, from where I carved the tracker out. And I thought, the day I ran and most days since then, about trying to find my ma, anybody, but—I always end up thinking maybe it’s better not to know.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That makes sense,” Din says, and swallows hard. “I… Thank you for trusting me with that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb taps his fingers against the wall, nodding. “There’s not a right or wrong answer, I don’t think. And it’s okay to take some time to mull it over.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I feel uprooted,” Din admits, sick of the thought just flying laps around his head. “What Bo-Katan said about the people who raised me, about </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> people—I don’t want to believe that. And she said some awful things to Boba Fett, too, and while I’d also judged him, dismissing his relationship with his father, that’s… That’s sacred. So it’s maybe too easy for me to question her judgement.” Din sighs, then hopes too late that it was quiet enough for Cobb not to hear it through the helmet. “I’ve taken the Creed, but I suddenly feel like I know nothing about my own culture.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb takes this in silently for a while, contemplative. “There’s a library in Bestine,” he says at last, looking away from the shelves and at Din. “It ain’t much, this being Tatooine and all, but they might have something that’d be relevant to you. Might give you more questions than answers, of course, but.” He shrugs, the forced casualness betrayed by his hopeful eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Probably too far to walk,” Din says, teasing even though his voice doesn’t indicate as much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb rolls his eyes. “I’ve got a speeder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I could get lost,” Din says, now letting himself smirk, taking small pieces of joy where he can get it. “Might need a guide.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb is smiling now. “Lucky for you, I know a guy.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spend the rest of the day just sitting, inside and outside and back again, chatting or closing their eyes in silence. Cobb reads his holojournal some, and Din scrolls through a few of his discs, reading snippets of theory and stories without absorbing much of anything. “Do I need to convince you to stay the night?” Cobb asks as the suns begin to sink lower, the sands bathed in red, and when Din shakes his head no, Cobb smiles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They rise early, before the second sun has climbed over the sand dunes. After taking turns eating breakfast, they trek past the edge of town and over a couple of hills to where a large, patchwork tent has been erected. Banthas mill about nearby. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din follows Cobb through the tent flap. A handful of townspeople, including one or two Din recognizes from the krayt dragon ordeal, sit in a circle with leaders of the nearby clans of Sand People. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I took what the Tusken you were translating for said to heart,” Cobb had told him last night. “That we were stealing their water. And we couldn’t have killed the krayt dragon without them, without everything they knew about it that we never would’ve noticed, so I thought, let’s see if we could try this whole working together thing again, get in right relationship with the people who saved us from becoming dragon chow. So we started having meetings. Alana Skreveniir, she's the mechanic’s granddaughter, got some fancy scholarship to study linguistics off-planet. Xyra contacted her, got her to come down and translate, and here we are.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s incredible,” Din had replied, floored, and Cobb had shrugged, rubbing his chin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s something we should’ve done a long time ago.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d gone on to explain how the Sand People had told them that all water in the deserts of Tatooine was sacred and had been promised to them, their ancestors, and their descendants. “But we’re a bunch of flat-broke ex-slaves,” Cobb had said, “so they understood how we can’t just up and leave the planet. So instead, they proposed some alternate solutions, and those have served us really well.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like what?” Din had asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The way we treated the banthas didn’t sit right with them, keepin’ ‘em penned in like that. So we took a file or two from their holobook—metaphorically speaking, since they don’t do the whole written word thing—and switched to free range. Started having regular meetings and deferring to them on anything to do with land stewardship. And they hate slavers as much as we do, so one of the things we’re talking about tomorrow is how to get more effective abolition tactics, because we’ve been kinda just sitting on our asses out here for too long. They have folks whose whole job is knowing their history, beginning to end, exactly the way it was passed down to them, so they’re bound to have some ideas. K’Yark said I could maybe sit in on it being recited sometime, if this keeps going well.” His eyes had sparkled, and Din couldn’t help a small smile to himself at the Marshal’s eagerness to learn simply for the sake of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, Din mirrors Cobb’s motions as they sit, filling in the gap in the circle. The townspeople pass bowls of water to the Sand People, who give them black melons in return. Din cracks his open and signs that he will eat it in privacy, then steps into the shadowy entrance of the tent to turn his back to the group, tilt his helmet up, and drink the fruit’s pungent milk. He knows the Sand People have elaborate customs around showing their skin; many of them nod at him in understanding when he returns. It’s the closest to his culture he’s felt since taking on the quest to bring the child to his people. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb has cracked his own melon and drank, Din notices; he swipes a hand across the back of his mouth and thanks the Sand Person who gave it to him. “Had to learn how to swallow my pride, first,” he says under his breath to Din, apparently sensing his curiosity. “After that, this stuff was easy in comparison.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The meeting commences, starting with updates on previous business and moving into brainstorming. Alana keeps up with the flow of conversation and easily translates the Sand People’s statements to Basic, but her vocabulary is more limited than Din’s, so she sometimes has trouble articulating the townspeople’s responses. Din shows her the sign and sound combination for the word she’s stuck on without thinking, but she smiles at him instead of getting offended, and she asks him if he could translate for a bit an hour or so into the meeting when the work is starting to wear on her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fascinating to Din, who prior to the child had never paid attention to politics that didn’t directly affect the Tribe’s well-being, is the vehement distaste towards the New Republic from both the Sand People and the Mos Pelgo residents. “They view our people, and our brother-people the Jawas, as pests,” Din translates for a clan leader named A’Skyr. “To them, Tatooine is worthless because it refuses to be molded into a metropolitan source of profit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A-fucking-men,” whoops Cobb, and Din has to pause a second to think of how to get the sentiment across. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To the New Republic, they decreed slavery is illegal now, so that means it’s gone,” Cobb elaborates from his porch chair after dinner that evening when Din asks about his intense reaction. “And why would they waste resources stopping something that doesn’t exist, right, especially in a shithole like Tatooine. It ain’t a coincidence that the Mining Collective grabbed Mos Pelgo around the neck the second the Empire fell, and it wasn’t an accident that it was an ex-slave in another man’s armor who broke that chokehold, not some New Republic officials. They don’t give a womp rat’s ass.” He spits on the dry ground, which Din recognizes as a far more serious display of disgust than elsewhere in the galaxy, where every molecule of water isn’t carefully tallied and protected.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Din says softly. He knows what it’s like to know that the only ones who value your life are the others in your tiny community.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“K’Yark said there’s a dust storm comin’ tonight,” Cobb says after a few minutes of staring at the horizon. Din understands this, too, the heavy need to not talk about it. He hums in acknowledgment. “Corinne told the rest of the town to prepare to hunker down for a few days. Suppose we’d best do the same.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By moonlight, Cobb shows him how to use suction to collect every last drop from the moisture farm, then stopper the holes, tape over the seams, and cover the whole thing in a couple layers of thick tarps. They drag the porch chairs indoors and pull a tarp down to cover the entryway, too, so sand won’t flow inside the second they open the front door after the storm. They stuff rags under the door and around the window frames, and Cobb hits a button so the solar panels rotate to hide their fragile planes, instead facing tough shells outward to the elements. Din feels a strange moment of kinship.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s about all we can do,” Cobb announces. He falls asleep easily, but the unfamiliar wind keeps Din awake late into each of the three nights of the storm, trying not to study Cobb’s profile in the shifting dimness. He was raised to regard change as the highest form of holiness, or the closest concept his culture had to it; life requires growth, therefore stagnation is antithetical to life. The man beside him, Din can’t help but think in the middle of the night, with sand so thick outside the windows that he can’t see the moons, has done more than just adapt to a constantly shifting climate, both political and geographical. He’s done more than just respond in sync when Din altered plans in the middle of a battle, when Din showed up at his door after months of radio silence and memories. He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>grown</span>
  </em>
  <span> with it, expanded his worldview, modified his tactics, switched the side of the bed he sleeps on. He’s met Din’s dearest value without even knowing what it is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the sun taps its way through the window at last, Din exhales in relief, knowing it brings with it the promise of work, the best repellent for unwieldy thoughts. Sure enough, once they’ve shoveled and elbowed and cursed their way out the door, the day and a better part of the night are spent helping what feels like the entire town: repairing shingles, delivering supplies, rolling up tarp after tarp. A fuzzy toddler takes a liking to Din at one house, following him around as he helps Cobb fix a broken moisture farm. Cobb laughs at the kid’s antics but sends Din a cautious glance when their back is turned, distracted by the rotating solar panels. Din nods once, which seems to satisfy Cobb, and he really is okay; it makes something in his chest stretch tight, when the kid raises a chubby hand and holds tight to the finger Din offers, but there’s good in the feeling, not just hurt. There’s love in it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb wraps his scarf loosely around the child’s shoulders before they leave, covering their nose and mouth from the blowing sand. He waves as they walk off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next day, Cobb takes his speeder to go check on a Pacithhip who gave birth during the tail end of the storm. Din uses the sonic, then does the complicated series of stretches and exercises he uses to maintain his strength during long flights. He takes a nap (on the couch, not Cobb’s bed, not trusting himself not to lift his helmet to inhale against the sheets), a rare and conflicting luxury, and only wakes up with his heart racing twice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two of the three moons have risen by the time Cobb returns to find Din sitting cross-legged on the floor in his flightsuit and helmet, the rest of his armor spread around him. He’d polished each piece with a rag, first, then broken down crying when his fingers traced over the Mudhorn signet, and then he’d sat and breathed and let the memories play out against his closed eyelids until he thought he might choke on them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb doesn’t say anything, just makes a mug of strong tea and sinks into his chair outside. Din joins him when he’s finished with the drink, leaving the armor on the floor. “How was your day?” Din asks tentatively, clearing his throat. The domesticity of the question is frighteningly comfortable even as it’s unfamiliar. He isn’t used to making small talk with someone who can speak back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Decent,” Cobb says, scratching his chin. “The birth had some complications, but the kid and their parent are okay now. Lotta crying from the relatives. I somehow got roped into being in charge of the grocery run.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your natural leadership skills come to bite you in the ass?” Din asks, and Cobb laughs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, something like that. It’s really no hardship, though, I like doing it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Taking care of people,” Din elaborates for him, and Cobb nods. “You’re good at it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I try,” Cobb says, eyeing him with a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Some make it hard for me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t realize my independence was such a burden,” Din says dryly. He isn’t sure why the words come so easily to him, over and over, a push for each of Cobb’s pulls. The same reason he told Fett to drop him off in Mos Pelgo without really thinking about it, allowing himself to fill the spaces Cobb holds for him. In battle, in conversation, in his bed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe all the extra sleep is addling his brain. Still, it’s better than wandering in some random city without a ship or a credit to his name, hoping no one tries to kill him for a bounty they don’t yet know they’ll never receive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was thinkin’ we could go to Bestine in two days’ time,” Cobb says, stretching. “If that works for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll check my schedule and get back to you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb snorts. “I’ve got to make sure folks are aware I’ll be gone for several days first. It’s a day’s ride by speeder, so if you’re hiding any major injuries, speak now.” Din shakes his head, and Cobb seems to accept that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Taungsday it is, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Din leaves his armor off the rest of the evening, climbs into Cobb’s bed in just his flightsuit and helmet, Cobb doesn’t say anything. Din falls asleep to the sound of the wind re-shaping the sand dunes and the feeling of Cobb’s arm draped across his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The journey to Bestine may as well be a joyride through Mustafar, it’s that kriffing hot. Din is stiff, and sore, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>itchy,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he misses his fucking ship more than ever before. Cobb had been planning to borrow a townsperson’s speeder, but the morning had brought with it an unexpected engine problem, and they’d decided to take the one landspeeder rather than wait stars knew how long for the owner to procure the necessary spare parts. So Din has spent the past eight hours plastered to Cobb’s back, stray threads from his various scarves flicking against Din’s visor—multiple because Cobb understandably didn’t want hot beskar burning into his chest and back all day, and his solution had been to wrap Din’s vambraces and cuirass in duplicates of the red fabric arranged over his own mouth and nose. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s arguably borderline heretical, but needs must, and it’s far from the most unorthodox thing Din has done with his armor at this point, as evidenced by his persistent hard-on for the first hour or so of having the front of his hips pressed to the back of Cobb’s. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The heat finally, blessedly breaks with nightfall, and from there it’s only an hour’s more of travel until Cobb is pulling the speeder to a stop and slumping over the handlebars.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank the kriffing heavens,” he says, and swings a leg over the seat to dismount. “Do you, ah, want separate beds, if they’ve got the option?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din probably should’ve considered that. “Whatever’s more comfortable for you,” he says, clearing his throat, and tries not to read too much into it when Cobb, fresh out the sonic and already half-asleep, tucks himself against Din’s chest that night. Maybe this option was cheaper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din sleeps later than he maybe ever has in his life. Nothing serious, there are still a few hours until midday, but when he wakes up to Cobb’s quiet swearing as he attempts to juggle the room key, two cups of caf, and a paper bag, he’s instantly embarrassed, like he’s said something inappropriate in another language and didn’t realize until someone pointed it out. Maybe it’s that he hasn’t been this full of grief since he was a child, so it seems inherently childish. But here he is, a clan of one, older and sadder than he’s ever been. Adult mourning, he’s learning, hurts differently than the sharp devastation of his parents’ loss as a child; it’s a heavy thing, bone-deep bruises that startle him every time he moves at the ferocity of their ache. He keeps crumpling beneath the weight of all the years he has left alone, without clan or covert or maybe even faith. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should’ve asked Fett how he’d borne the rejection of his own people. But then again, the man’s strategy seemed to be flinging his fists against the wall of their hostility, so maybe he wouldn’t have been any help. Still, Din’s mind keeps overlaying his helmet in his hand onto the pile of empty armor that used to cover those who raised him, saved him, grew up with and argued with and hated and loved him, enough to throw themselves at the brink of a second near-extinction out of loyalty to their bond by a creed he’s since broken. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But—the child is safe. So it cannot have been wholly in vain. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb passes him one of the cups and something wrapped in thin paper from the bag. “It’s a pallie tart,” he says. “Wasn’t sure if you’d like it, but they were my favorite as a kid, so.” He shrugs, ducking his head. “Figured it was worth a shot.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din doesn’t trust his voice to work right, so he just nods as he takes the pastry. Cobb sits on the edge of the bed, his back to Din; they’ve worked out a system by now, equal parts domestic and blasphemous, a loophole woven just as much from tiredness as it is from trust. It’s not that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants </span>
  </em>
  <span>to break the Creed just to share a meal with Cobb, but it’s hard to see the point, sometimes, when he’s already profaned himself in front of a room full of Imperial soldiers (even if they’ve since died) and other Mandalorians who would never grasp the significance of the act. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t regret removing the helmet for Grogu, feeling the child’s hand on his face, meeting his needs for maybe the only time during his chaotic and dangerous stint as a caretaker. They were of the same clan, sacredly bonded; how could that act of love ever disgrace him? He would give his soul and then some to put that expression of earnest love on the little one’s face. But he still feels sick whenever he thinks of how there was an audience. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Anyway, Din and Cobb eat their breakfast together, Cobb facing away from him and making small, pleased hums every so often. Din watches him lick jam off his thumb and feels a lurch of want, then guilt over the imbalance of watching Cobb like this when he can’t look back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s good,” Din says, and he can tell from the back of Cobb’s head that he’s smiling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walk the whole way to the library. “You could not </span>
  <em>
    <span>pay</span>
  </em>
  <span> me to get on that thing right now,” Cobb said, glaring in the direction of where they’d parked the speeder, “My ass has never been this sore in my fuckin’ life.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din spares him the obvious joke. He’s sore, too, though he isn’t about to comment on it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The library is indistinguishable from all the other short, oblong, tan buildings, but Cobb finds it easily. “That there’s the museum,” he says, jerking a thumb at the building next to it. “Only one on the planet.” Cobb holds the door for Din and makes his way to the reception desk, where he gives the librarian a winning smile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My friend an’ I are in search of some information on Mandalore, if you could point us in the right direction.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Anything specific?” they ask, casting an unsubtle glance at Din.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nope,” Cobb says, still smiling. “Whatever you got.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The librarian types on a holographic screen for a moment. “You’ll want to check section XV329, on the third row to your left. Materials from any X-designated section cannot be checked out, but you may use our public reading space until six o’clock standard time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Much obliged,” Cobb says, nodding to them, and heads in the direction they indicated. Din eyes the datacrons, suddenly nervous. He isn’t sure what he’ll do if they don’t have anything. He isn’t sure what he’ll do if they do.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There ya go,” Cobb says, pointing at a spot on the shelf. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mandalore (Planet), History &amp; Culture </span>
  </em>
  <span>is written in Basic on the section label. Above it are three datacrons.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess I’ll get started,” Din says, staring at them like they might shoot him. Cobb claps him on the shoulder and wanders off to find a collection of Imperial-era Tatooinean abolitionist pamphlets that was cited in some holodisc of his, saying he’ll meet Din back at the reading area. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din decides to start with the most basic option, </span>
  <em>
    <span>A Survey of Mandalorian History.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He settles into a chair in the corner and starts to read. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The datacron has more sentences in Mando’a in it than he’s ever seen in one place outside of the covert. It’s a balm to his soul, cracked and bloody since the firefight on Nevarro. It refers to the planet as Manda’yaim, to his people as Mando’ade, the children of Mandalore—words he hasn’t seen since he left the covert to pursue a target that ended up being a baby. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The opening chapters discuss the ancient history of the planet and the beginnings of the multi-species culture. There’s a sketch of a vheh’yaime dwelling that he can’t help tracing with one gloved finger, wishing he could pocket it and carry it with him. Aside from the greater depth of material and the illustrations, which are at a much higher skill level than those of his kind but artistically inept teacher, it’s nothing he hadn’t already learned as a foundling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Things start to diverge, however, at the chapter introducing the Aka’liit, the Faithful who maintained their culture and resisted the growing pacifism of the other Mando’ade. Din was taught that the battles on Ithull were both glorious and necessary, an example of Mandalorian victory over those who would challenge them. He and his fellow foundlings would reenact the fight during playtime. The datacron, though… It wasn’t a battle at all, he reads; the section header is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ithullan Genocide. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The author cites multiple historians who refer to the event as the greatest crime of its era. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din stands up. He feels like he’s going to be sick.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb glances up from the holobook he’s been absorbed in all morning but doesn’t say anything as Din walks off. He makes his way methodically through the stacks of datacrons as if he can navigate the maze of his thoughts in the same way. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Is this the way of the galaxy, then—the Mando’ade massacre a people almost to extinction, and two hundred standard years later, they suffer the same fate? A constant cycle of killing and being killed, the former glorified and the latter accepted as both natural and noble?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He feels no less nauseous when he reaches the reading area again, but he needs to know the rest, with a desperation overpowering the horror. And so he learns: after the Ithullan Genocide, the Aka’liit split into the True Mandalorians, who believed in fighting with honor as mercenaries, and the Kyr’tsad, the Death Watch, who held that the destiny of the Mando’ade was to conquer the galaxy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din—he’s never wanted to conquer anybody. He just wants to survive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then, civil war. He doesn’t know enough about the genealogy of Clan Vizsla to trace Paz’s relation to Tor, but it’s obvious that there is one. That doesn’t necessarily mean Bo-Katan was being literal when she referred to the Tribe as the Children of the Watch, but that doesn’t do anything to mitigate the tight feeling in Din’s chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only things he was ever taught about the True Mandalorians were that they were an inaccurately-named disgrace to the Way of the Mandalore and that they provoked the Jedi by flaunting their murders of civilian women and children. As for the first, what was Din if not a mercenary, or at least a former one? On hiatus, maybe. And he would like to think he’s fought with honor. And the second—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din makes several laps around the library. On the fourth, Cobb joins him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Got you this,” Cobb says, handing him a holojournal. “Thought you might want to take some notes, or process your thoughts, or something.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din stares at him, overcome. There aren’t any words that could fit in this moment without forcing some of the emotion out. Cobb seems unbothered by his silence, though, maybe even understanding of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walk in silence until they near the door, at which point Cobb nods towards the exit and asks if Din wants to get some air. Outdoors doesn’t feel much different under the helmet, but Din nods, and Cobb tells the librarian they’ll be back soon. The place is pretty empty, so they seem to decide it’s fine for two datacrons to get left out for a short while.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb leads him around a corner and down the dusty street, tan buildings stretching on in clustered rows on either side of them. The sun is high overhead, and the streets are fairly empty, most people sheltering from the heat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You wanna talk about it?” Cobb finally asks. His hands are in his pockets, and he looks around as he strolls. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din swallows. “It’s, uh—I learned some less-than-savory information.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“An understatement, I’m sure.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb bumps his shoulder into Din’s. “I can lend an ear, if you wanna get it off your chest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din pauses, listening to the sound of his own footfalls while he collects his thoughts. “I was raised to believe that a certain faction of Mandalorians were responsible for the murder of civilians, and that was the reason the Jedi eradicated them. But… according to this book, a different faction, the ideological predecessors to the Tribe I’m from, committed the murders and framed the others for it.” Din closes his eyes for a moment, breathes deeply. “There are so few of us left now, it’s devastating to think they willingly caused the deaths of so many of their own people over a difference of beliefs. Only one Mandalorian survived the massacre at Galidraan. A foundling who became the leader of Mandalore, a man by the name of Jango Fett.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb raises his eyebrows. “Any relation to the infamous bounty hunter who dropped you off at my front door?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din nods. This information, too, had bowled him over—Din has touched the armor of the Mand’alor. The man walking beside him spent years bearing its ill-fitting weight on his frame. Never mind that Din himself could have </span>
  <em>
    <span>been </span>
  </em>
  <span>the Mand’alor if he’d chosen, had the right to it by ritual, earned it by the strength of his tired body and the sound of beskar reverberating off a blade. (It does not escape him that he won the fight, and therefore the throne, with the weapon he was gifted by the Jedi he refused to kill. Some workings of the galaxy are too intricate for his mind to linger on for too long without going dizzy and unfocused; the interweavings of his and Jango Fett’s threads are one of these.) “His father. The template for him and all the other clones.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb gives a low whistle. “That spell trouble for me?” he asks, already connecting the same dots Din has. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din shakes his head, lips curving upward despite the heaviness of the conversation. “Not any more than you were already in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, that’s something, at least.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walk in silence until Din speaks again. The shadows of overhangs dance along the road; the slight breeze is visible here, its outline traced by dust. “He fought valiantly against the slaying of his people. He was personally responsible for just over half of the Jedi casualties that day. One Sith quoted in the book, he asked, </span>
  <em>
    <span>how did one man kill so many?</span>
  </em>
  <span> And the man who was there responded, </span>
  <em>
    <span>with his bare hands.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din stares at his gloves. He is thinking, of course, of Nevarro, of seeing his people in the sunshine for the second time in his life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then—he was stripped of his armor and sold into slavery. After two years, he escaped.” Din doesn’t look at Cobb’s face, wanting to offer him this small privacy. “He fought the one who betrayed him and, his armor restored, tracked down the leader of the rival faction.” Tor Viszla, head of the clan of the shriek-hawk that swooped from all Death Watch armor. “They fought, and he stabbed Fett with a poisoned blade, but before he could kill him, a dire-cat attacked. He was mauled to death; Fett survived. But he still bore the wounds of his experiences. He abdicated the throne and left Mandalore to be a bounty hunter, and eventually a father.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stars above,” Cobb murmurs after a moment. “I understand why that shook you up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An understatement if there ever was one. “I’m so full of sorrow that I don’t know where to put it,” he admits quietly. It feels like hauling supplies through the desert on his shoulders, but now with no child strapped close to him and cooing. He has never learned a lamentation large enough to encompass this history. “That magnitude of betrayal… It’s incomprehensible. The very concept of civil war goes against everything we believe in. What good is loyalty to Creed if it supersedes loyalty to people?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ain’t that the question?” Cobb asks with a sigh. They turn a corner. “What is this Creed, exactly, if I may ask?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din wants to say no, he may not, it’s not something he as an outsider will ever understand; he’s suddenly and intensely afraid of Cobb’s dismissal, that he might look at the sum total of everything that ever mattered to Din up until he laid eyes on the contents of a floating mechanical pram and deem it frivolous, and in doing so lose Din’s trust forever. But—who else is he going to talk to? His own unfamiliar reflection? And ultimately, he couldn’t keep the words out of his throat even if he wanted to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s based on the Resol’nare,” he explains, “the Six Actions required of all the Mandalorian people: wearing Mandalorian armor, speaking the Mando’a language, defending oneself and one’s family, educating children about Mandalorian culture and values, contributing to the well-being of the tribe, and supporting the Mand’alor when called upon. There’s a saying that’s passed down to each child: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ba’jur bal beskar’gam, ara’nov, aliit, Mando’a bal Mand’alor—an vencuyan mhi.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It lists the Six Actions, and then it says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>these are the reasons we survive.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ever since the Great Purge, we’ve been a scattered people; the only reason our culture still exists is because we are bound together by who we are, what we do. That… that is the Way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding,” Cobb says, “but… those all sound like positive things.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din breathes out long and slow through his mouth. “They are. They’re good things, good values, and they’re important to me. But—they aren’t just nice suggestions. In Mandalorian belief, they’re what’s required to become part of the Manda, for your soul to join those of your people after death. To break one of the Resol’nare is to become bereft of your identity in the community, to forfeit your very soul. And for most, that isn’t a problem. But I was raised to interpret the Actions more, ah, strictly.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How do you mean?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was taught that wearing armor meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> wearing it. Once your helmet left your face in the presence of another living being, you were dar’manda and unfit to wear it again. It was a rejection of your heritage, even if it was against your will. And I didn’t know there were Mandalorians who interpreted the Creed differently.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din is grateful that Cobb’s expression doesn’t reveal his reaction to this information. Despite Din’s own new and raw questions, for an outsider to respond with horror would be a knife slashed through every imagining Din has had of the two of them. “That’s harsh,” Cobb says finally, his tone neutral but not dismissive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din laughs, a sharp, hollow thing. “Yes, well. If you allowed yourself to be shamed in that way, the belief went, then you were not worthy of the armor to begin with.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kriff,” Cobb says, which about covers it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And,” Din says, unable to stop the words from pouring out now that he’s opened the pressurized container of his heart, “the Tribe ascribed to the old beliefs, that anyone who was not Mandalorian does not possess a spirit. The datacron, it told stories of whole peoples forced to swear by the Resol’nare or be killed, something I never knew of—conversion was always framed as a voluntary blessing; who wouldn’t want to become whole? But—but I believe that the child has a soul, without taking the Creed. That you do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I’m flattered,” Cobb says, flashing that grin at him, even though there’s sadness in his eyes. He studies the ground for some time, contemplative. “I have a tattoo on my ribs,” he says finally, far from anything Din was expecting. He traces his fingers over its outline through his shirt. “It’s the symbol of the old Tatooinean liberation movement, ancient by some standards, the sort of history no one teaches you. You’ve gotta dig it up with your bare hands. But when I got it, I knew it was a failsafe, ‘cause the people in power always know how to recognize a threat. If I was ever caught by a slaver, it means I’ll never go back to that; my fate’s a guaranteed bullet through the head.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din nods, more relieved than he knows how to describe at Cobb’s description of the uncommon things he, too, has done to keep his soul. At his willingness to bare just as much of himself as Din does, a call and response of vulnerability.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’ve circled back around by now and are approaching the library again. “You wanna take a break until tomorrow?” Cobb asks. “I’ll put your datacron in the return stack.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din shakes his head. “I’m almost done with it. I’d like to finish.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright,” Cobb says easily. He scrolls through a holobook of children’s stories from throughout the galaxy, feet on the furniture, boots pressed lightly against Din’s side, keeping him grounded. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb arrives at the motel room with dinner a few minutes after Din steps out the sonic. They load meat and vegetables onto their flatbreads, and Din can’t help the noise he makes at the first bite. He blames it on his deep emotional and physical exhaustion, the gates to all his walls unlocked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That good, huh?” Cobb asks. He’s facing away, but Din can picture his smirk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m used to buying rations for their longevity, not their flavor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, the food stalls in Bestine are probably the best on the planet. They can afford the water to grow produce, even if it’s of limited variety.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They eat the rest of the meal in comfortable silence, and then Cobb teaches him the card games popular at the Mos Pelgo bar. Din expects to be awake for hours only to dream of death, but Cobb settles into sleep holding Din close to his chest, and he drifts into a restful and dreamless night thinking of how Cobb’s forehead is pressed to the side of his helmet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Back to it?” Cobb asks the next morning, and Din nods. He spends the day with a memoir titled </span>
  <em>
    <span>Life After Death Watch, </span>
  </em>
  <span>marinating in his own questions and confusion. Like: if the Way is open to other interpretations, does it still mean anything to follow it? And: if this author left, how many others have?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembers a woman, when he was still a young child, who always took the time to answer the foundlings’ questions or correct their stances. And one day, after leaving the covert to pursue an assignment, she never came back. The Tribe leaders said she was dead, but—but even at that age, Din had already seen them spend years searching for a body to ensure the safety of the beskar strapped to it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And beyond that, how many had removed their helmet for a casual hookup or a dire emergency, then returned to the only community they knew without saying a word of it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb touches two fingers to the beskar over the crown of Din’s head, a gesture that makes Din flush with its intimacy. It doesn’t escape him that Cobb chose a moment when the reading area was empty to do this, and he’s grateful for it. “I can feel your worry racin’ around in there,” Cobb says quietly. “Faster than a ship in hyperdrive.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din swallows, something tight and painful in his throat. “Is it wrong to find meaning in something that’s hurt so many people?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb exhales slowly. “I can’t answer that for you, Din. But if it is, that’s something no one in the galaxy has gotten right.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next day is their last in Bestine. Din finishes the third datacron, a collection of New Mandalorian poetry, by midday, and Cobb insists they visit the museum.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve never been to one,” he says, grinning. “Worth seeing what could possibly be so interesting from this old rock.” Din knows him well enough by now to hear the affection in the words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s more art than Din was expecting, mostly realistic but some leaning towards abstract. Cobb reads every single placard in the place. Cobb nudges him when they reach the painting of the Krayt dragon skeleton, and Din nudges him back when they pass the creature’s actual skull. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure brings back some memories,” Cobb says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good times,” Din responds dryly, and Cobb snorts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, once I knew you were alive.” He meets Din’s gaze even though he can’t see his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss him,” Din admits, and the statement lingers in the air between them as Cobb takes Din’s gloved hand in his own and intertwines their fingers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’ve just piled off of Cobb’s scooter, sore and stumbling inside by the light of the three moons, when Cobb stops by the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Would you stay?” he asks. Din doesn’t pretend not to know what he means.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It—it could be dangerous,” he says, “For your town. As far as I know, there’s still a price on the child’s head, and everyone out to get it thinks he’s with me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To most people, Mos Pelgo doesn’t exist,” Cobb reminds him. “And to those who do know, so what, they might hear there’s a guy walking around in Mandalorian armor. That’s old news.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has a point. A pretty good one, really. And Din has shown his hand by not denying his interest in such a proposition at the beginning. So instead of pretending otherwise, he says, “I need a drink.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that a yes?” Cobb asks, grinning. It broadens when Din rolls his eyes, even though there’s no way he could’ve seen it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he admits, and Cobb’s breath catches. Din watches his chest move: expand, contract.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll drink to that,” Cobb says, and opens the door. Cobb uses the sonic first while Din gives his armor a basic wipe-down. When Din gets out of the ‘fresher, there are two full shot glasses on the table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cheers,” says Cobb.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din tips his helmet up to take the shot, and Cobb chokes on his spotchka. That’s all it takes, in the end; the string of tension between them has finally been pulled tight enough to snap—or maybe not that, maybe something closer to building rather than breaking, armor carefully forged and just now dunked in water. A change of temperature, a sharp gasp. Din fumbles his hand toward Cobb’s wrist and encircles it in his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you—” Cobb asks, and clears his throat. “I don’t want you doin’ anything you’re gonna regret.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t,” Din says, and Cobb nods, trusting his judgement in this as he had on the battlefield. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In that case,” he says, taking a step closer, “would you be amenable to me losing some clothing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Din says, mouth suddenly dry. Cobb reaches with his free hand and guides Din’s fingers to his belt buckle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Help me out?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Din startles himself with how badly he wants to kiss his smirk. He lets go of Cobb’s wrist and undoes the buckle, pulling the belt through the loops slowly and setting it down. He brings his hands back to Cobb’s waist, thumbs brushing his belly, and at Cobb’s nod, undoes the buttons so his pants fall to the ground. Cobb steps out of them and tugs Din towards the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they’re settled on the bed, Din takes his gloves off, runs his bare hands over Cobb’s shoulders and arms and sides. Cobb shudders at the touch, practically radiating pleasure; his skin is warm, as is his breath, already coming in quick pants. “Din,” he says, and Din clutches his hand, flushing beneath his helmet at how significant the gesture is, how obvious. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He waits a minute before he asks, testing the thought, but it doesn’t surprise him, and it isn’t the first time he’s considered it. He puts his free hand on the bottom rim of his helmet. “Will you freak out if I take this off?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb gapes at him. “I—Are you sure?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din squeezes his hand before he can stop himself. “Yes.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Cobb says after a second, squeezing back. “I’ll do my best not to freak out on you, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din huffs a small laugh and slowly lifts it off. He’s hit by the thought that he wishes—well, not that his first time had been like this, but the second. That he’d removed his helmet for Grogu and no one else, and then, after beginning to defuse some of the guilt, for Cobb. He can’t rewrite that moment in that too-bright room, the machine scanning his face, and he doesn’t want to—his heart is continually beating the reminder that the child is safe, is with his people—but this is so different. He never thought breaking a key tenet of his beliefs could feel so safe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb stares at him for a long moment, his face so soft and tender that Din almost wants to look away. It hurts the way a bruise does days after a fight, the ache of healing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s bright,” Din says, and Cobb chuckles. He scrambles out of the bed, all limbs and elbows, to turn the main light off and flick on a small, orange light low on the wall. Din unabashedly checks out his ass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Better?” Cobb asks as he climbs back in beside him, and he looks nervous, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to meet Din’s eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m okay,” Din assures him, and Cobb relaxes minutely. “I’ll stop if it’s too much.” The dim lighting is helping, making everything that much less overwhelming and further from the memory of the Imperial fort. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, and Din’s breath catches. Somehow, he hadn’t thought it’d be like this, Cobb giving and giving and Din soaking it all up into his skin like rain on arid land. He nods, and Cobb straddles him, runs one hand cautiously over Din’s cheek. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb kisses his forehead, both of his cheeks. His chin, his dimples. The hollow of his throat, and along the line of his jaw, down his neck until the collar of Din’s flightsuit stops him. “Please,” Din breathes, and Cobb hovers over him, gaze flickering over his face, before he finally, gently presses his mouth to Din’s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By the Mandalore, by the Creed, by the stars and suns and moons and the mother tongue Din has long since forgotten, by anything he has ever held dear, it is holy. Something sacred and careful and kind, Cobb moving his mouth against his without a trace of the hunger they both certainly feel but instead like he’s trying to </span>
  <em>
    <span>give</span>
  </em>
  <span> enough to equal the enormous trust he knows Din has handed him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had already, months back, asking amid sand and screams and blood for him to care for a child.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din touches his tongue to Cobb’s lower lip, testing, more out of his element than he’s been in his entire adult life aside from his stint as primary caretaker of a toddler. Cobb moans from that alone, opens his mouth to Din, and he could be overdoing it to make him feel better about his lack of experience, but Din really gets the sense that he isn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They make out like that for a long time, Din losing his breath and finding it again over and over, Cobb’s tongue in his mouth and knees holding his hips tight. Eventually, Cobb rolls off of him to flop backwards on the mattress, groaning. His knees crack. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gonna feel that tomorrow,” he says, but Din can tell he doesn’t regret it by the way he rubs a thumb over his own red mouth. “You doin’ okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din nods. “Better than,” he manages, and fights back a flush at the way his voice rasps. Cobb grins.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good,” he says, splaying his hand over Din’s belly, his thumb moving in little circles. “Good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can—” Din clears his throat. “I can take this off, if you want.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘If I want,’ he says,” Cobb teases. “As if there’s any planet in this galaxy where I wouldn’t want you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din swallows hard, feeling more exposed by this sentence than his bare face. Between the two of them, they get his clothes off, and he doesn’t have the chance to get self-conscious before Cobb’s calloused hands are on his softest places, touching his belly and arms and the inside of his legs just above his knees. Din opens his legs on instinct, and Cobb exhales hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want my mouth on you so damn bad,” he says, kissing Din’s stomach. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” Din gasps, spreading his legs wider.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s it, baby,” Cobb soothes, running his hands up Din’s thighs and then his thumbs over the skin between them, spreading him open. “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, and puts his mouth to it, kisses where Din is wet and aching. Din makes a noise in his throat, unbidden and unrestrained, and Cobb hums, runs the flat of his tongue up to Din’s cock and sucks. Din’s hips jerk, and Cobb chuckles, rubbing his thigh. He traces Din’s hipbone with his thumb, and Din feels like he could cry, it’s so gentle. The first time anyone has touched these pieces of him, and it’s gentler than anything he’s ever known. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay, darlin’,” he says, stroking Din’s cock with one hand and propping himself on the other elbow. He watches Din’s face intently, awe splayed across his features at every hitch of Din’s breath. Cobb kisses the divets of Din’s hips, his mons, his dick, sucks him off slow and languid, and Din shakes and shakes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din covers his mouth with one hand. How strange, to touch his own face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb’s chin glints when he next lifts his head. Din is too unraveled to be embarrassed; he reaches his hand to Cobb’s face, cradling his cheek, swiping his thumb over the traces of his own arousal. Cobb tilts his head to catch the finger between his lips, draws it into his mouth and sucks. He kisses the pad of Din’s thumb when he pulls back, the tender place where it connects to his palm, his lifeline, each of his knuckles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How strange, to be touched. And like he’s worth being careful with, at that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb touches Din’s chest, traces his scars with his fingers and then his mouth. He knows Din doesn’t have all that much sensation, but Din gets the sense that Cobb needs to do this, that the act is stitching some two pieces inside him back together. In Din’s culture, bodies like his are treated similarly to armor: both normal and sacred. Change is revered, so this type of change, while not universal, is respected. Din knows not all cultures are like this, though; if his former self were shown this moment, his own nakedness would be significantly more of a surprise to him than the body of his partner, but he knows it’s different for Cobb. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb shifts up and kisses his mouth, their scars aligning. Experiencing the Manda while alive, Din has read, is an overwhelming realization of the oneness of all Mando’ade—or, according to the more fringe beliefs of universalists, all of existence. This, he thinks, is an insight into a fraction of what that must feel like: him and Cobb, connected, one and the same. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He honestly might have been content to kiss all night, but Cobb slides a leg between his, thigh strong and coarse with hair between Din’s own, and Din shifts to desperate faster than he can track. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want to fuck me?” he asks, breathier than he means it to be, and Cobb swears for a solid minute before saying yes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where?” Cobb asks. “Your ass, or—?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din considers. “The front is fine,” he says, and Cobb nods, climbs out of bed for the second time that night and returns with lube, a condom, and his cock. The lube is colder than he expected, startling, but Cobb tongues at his cock while he fingers him, strokes his thigh, and Din gets over it fast. Cobb pulls back to switch his packer out for the hard cock, adjusting harness straps, and gently positions Din’s legs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay?” he asks, and when Din nods, he slowly slides inside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait,” Din says, and Cobb freezes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, or stop?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait,” Din repeats, and he fumbles for his helmet, puts it on. He exhales heavily in relief. “It’s—it’s not bad,” he assures him, “just a lot. It’s easier to deal with, this way.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Makes sense,” Cobb agrees, shoulders relaxing. He leans forward to press a kiss just above the visor, the movement also pressing his cock deeper inside Din, tender and heated both. He checks if Din is good before moving, sliding into him slow and deep over and over for as long as both of them can take it before fucking him fast and hard and desperate. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gives Din’s cock a tug, stroking him in time with his thrusts until his rhythm goes frantic and unpredictable. He mouths at Din’s neck and strokes him through it as he comes, stays inside him and rocks shallowly while shoving a hand into his boxers and bringing himself off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cobb eases out of him gently, then traces a finger around Din’s hole, its wet and just-fucked looseness. His finger wanders up to rest just below Din’s cock, still hard and aching. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want another one?” he asks, grinning. Din swallows. He’s sore from the long speeder ride, carrying a weariness that’s been near-constant the past several months, and trying so hard to keep from rubbing himself off against the pad of Cobb’s index finger that his thighs are trembling with the effort.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he admits, and Cobb, thank the stars, touches him, rubs circles in the most sensitive spots until Din is at the brink and pulls his hand back, lets Din pant for a few seconds before ducking his head between Din’s legs and fucking him with his tongue, sucking him hard and insistent until Din comes on his face, his own moans echoing inside his helmet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Later, after they’re relatively cleaned up and lay curled into one another, Cobb nudges Din’s shoulder with his own. “Credit for your thoughts?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din swallows, wanting to do something with the thought other than let it wear circles in his skull but knowing he’ll damage the mood, if not destroy it entirely. “Ahsoka said his attachment to me was a risk. What if—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What if what, Din?” Cobb asks gently, feeling in the sheets for his hand and holding it. “What if you shouldn’t have cared for him? I promise you, no one in the galaxy would be worse off with your love than without it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din holds his breath for a beat. “Even you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Especially me.” Cobb presses a kiss to the side of his forehead and, when Din says nothing else, soon drifts into sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Din read in one of the datacrons at Bestine that the Mandalorian respect for change was ancient, older even than the extremes of the other beliefs he was raised with. It was the foundation of all other aspects of the culture: stagnation and expansion are always in conflict, therefore growth necessitates confrontation, so to engage in that act is to be divine. Traditionally, the Mando’ade applied this belief to the act of warfare. There’s a man in Din’s arms, though, who’s dedicating his life to confronting the scum who enslave people and the indifferent society that allows them to exist. Din himself is looking at months, if not years, of confronting the values and practices he was taught, wrestling them into a shape he can live with. Their relationship itself has evolved vastly over the past several hours, changing like the desert sands beneath the wind. And all of these, too, are holy, Din thinks. He shifts to wrap his arm around Cobb, and it is divine.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i’m on tumblr @campgender if you want to say hi!</p>
<p>i was really excited about the ways in which chapter 9 subverted Western movie tropes, and i was immediately interested in what Land Back would look like for Mos Pelgo and the Sand People. that being said, the canon content on the Sand People suffers from a heavy dose of fantasy racism, and i’m a white settler, so please feel free to point out any improvement necessary for that scene through a comment or a DM or ask on tumblr!</p>
<p>this was a very brief reference, but the phrase “one and the same” towards the end was an intentional nod to getmean’s phenomenal fic “now i'm ready to feel your hand, and lose my heart on the burning sands”</p></blockquote></div></div>
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